An MMO Life, Coral Russell [love letters to the dead txt] 📗

Family gatherings were all about Screw Your Neighbor. As a kid I got to giggle over the name and play a card game with the adults at the grown up table instead of being relegated to the small table with the younger siblings and cousins playing Chutes and Ladders. I remember endless games of War with my cousins and then we learned Speed. One memorable summer I became the Queen of Speed by beating my brother and cousin. Then there came Solitaire, Double Solitaire, Euker. In High School my friends taught me to play Hearts and we played endless rounds in between rehearsals. I was not into video games as much as my brother who played hours on end to get the top score in Asteroids. My aversion to video games was: one, I wasn’t good at them; two, I really wasn’t good at them and three, I became mighty nauseous with any first person point of view. I dabbled in them, but then my brother would casually stroll up and trounce my score. But the point is here, we have always been surrounded by games of one kind or another.

Games have a checkered past. Almost any game in history that gained substantial popularity has been banned, censored or dismissed as a “time waster” since, well, forever. Take Buddha for example. He had a whole lot of lists of things he would not do and one list just for games: board games with 8 to 10 rows, games played on imaginary boards, pick up sticks, hop scotch, Pictionary, imitating deformities. Well, now, that last one I can understand. Wei qi (or Go) was criticized for being addictive and based on trickery until it was recommended as a way to learn military strategy. With its endless variations (no two games are alike) the game was thought to resemble the chaotic nature of the world. Skittles (as it’s called in the US), Devil Amongst the Tailors or Toptafel was banned along with a whole host of other “past times” during Henry the VIII’s reign for the working class because they should either be at work or at home and not doing anything that the authorities could not control. Of course, the rich or nobility could do as they please. “Ball play” or “playing at ball,” which was largely unorganized, was banned by Lord Mayor of the City of London (1314). King Edward the III of England (1363) banned “football, handball, hockey and other such idle games”, and King Henry the IV of England (1409) banned levying money on football. Gambling on games is as old as playing games itself. It is banned for it’s addictive nature in most of it’s forms and is cursed for many a ruined life. The Olympian gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades threw dice in a helmet to decide who was going to rule which part of the universe.

We’re all addicted to an MMO of some sort. After moving back to my hometown, my mom decided a couple of days ago that she wanted us to play Loteria. It teaches some basic vocabulary in Spanish and I guess she was tired of my daughter winning at Sorry! I have to hand it to my kid, she studied the cards and tried to learn the names in Spanish and was repeating after me when I called out the cards. It dawned on me that now I know why all my Hispanic students knew these words in Spanish! But not in English!

My mom, stepdad, husband and daughter started and I ended up calling out cards. Besides making some pronunciation errors that my stepdad thought hilarious, I did all right. My stepdad started telling us how at El Rancho, a small town in the country, in Mexico where he's from, they play in large groups until all their money is gone. Then they start pulling out bags of rice and cans of food to sell at the Loteria so they can keep playing.

I was laughing hard at this point and we started asking more questions. Apparently, they pay for the cards, like in Bingo, and then use markers as they complete the card. He said they're addicted to playing on the weekends starting early in the morning and ending at 2-3am the next day. His niece won a lot of money but then couldn't get up for school Monday morning. Mom said the women are addicted to it and leave the tables to go cook then come back to continue playing.

We, as human beings, also love a good story. People say you play games to escape reality, but far from it! I think we play games to delve deeper into story. We want to be moved. The fact that some of the most successful games have a huge story behind them complete with mentions of mythical characters, items, and creatures, speaks to the fact that players want to be involved. Also fanfare fiction, where players have developed their own story line based on the characters they play, tell us a great deal about the need for story in our lives.

Around the year 2000, I officially entered the world of video games with Final Fantasy VIII. I married a wonderful man who played Mortal Kombat until beating it and anyone who challenged him was second nature. I could not understand his level of dedication and we had to have a couple of heart to heart talks before he stopped neglecting helping around the house for the game. He would take me to the local game resale shop and I would look around while he traded and bought games for whatever gaming console we owned at the time. One fateful day he was perusing the selections and he decided it was about time that I found a game I could play. In fact, we were not leaving the store until I found one. He talked to the sales guy and explained my peculiarities - I wasn’t good at games and couldn’t handle the first person point of view. The sales guy really listened and brought over FFVIII and popped it into the Playstation for us to preview. I loved that about the game store.

The opening movie of FFVIII started and I can’t begin to describe the feeling of wonderment and awe that we both felt watching it. When did games turn into this?! Then I picked up the controler and played the game. No really, I could play it! I was so excited and we quickly bought it and hurried home with our prize. We played the game for over a year and had to restart it at least 3-4 times because we didn’t have a guide. We didn’t realize they made guides. The characters in the game became household names. My husband was better at some of the battles and would beat the “boss fight” but not save it so I could try it. I would get so mad at him! I went on to play more games from the Final Fantasy franchise, one of the most successful video game franchises in history, and collect some figurines.

Fast forward to sometime in 2007 when I decided to try Square Enix’s MMO FFXI. I couldn’t figure it out and the first time I appeared a complete stranger walked up and slapped me. I was not amused and told my husband I wasn’t playing anymore. He asked if he could take over my character and try. When he asked his friends about the game, he was surprised to find out that a small group played and one good friend started playing as a beta tester. We changed servers to play with the group and we both fell down the MMO rabbit hole for a good two years. Dinner time was literally planned around the game. We perfected the art of dinners that could be cooked using a timer and eaten in front of our respective computers or gulped down at the dinner table. I made some life long friends, watched relationships form, become real, and others break apart. I remember laughing so hard I cried. I did tear up when I beat the final level cap for my character. We knew we were a bit too obsessive when my daughter said, “All you do is play that stupid game.” I fell into it more than my husband did. I had to literally end up hating the game and throwing away everything associated with it and quit. My husband bought me the collector’s edition and everything to go with FFXII but without the interaction with other people, it was boring. When I reconnected with one of my best friends I introduced her to FFXI because of circumstances in her life. I’m evil, aren’t I? But, she was instantly hooked and within a couple of weeks met a guy and they fell in love all within the parameters of the game that have since grown to encounters outside of the game. FFXIV is coming out in the fall of 2010 and my husband and I both signed up to do beta testing. He was accepted and we’re checking it out. The graphic detail of the game is incredible and we’re considering pre-ordering the game even though that means upgrading some hardware on our computers.

I’m also an educator. When I started playing FFXI, I became intensely interested in integrating technology and education, especially in the field of language acquisition. I wrote numerous, simple games and used them with my students. The fact that you are motivated in game to do tasks and learn whatever is necessary to complete a task and then can pass on that information to someone else in a mentoring role is just the type of learning experience teacher’s dream of. The willingness to cooperate with a team to complete an objective, and how to deal with people who abuse or do not hold the same values that you do are also part of negotiating life. Not everything is rosy, but that too is a part of the game.

I branched out into games where you can learn language. There is a MMO game to learn Chinese called Zon. It is very interesting and fun. I play an MMO in Spanish to help me practice that language. The possibilities, to me, look endless.